WORLD: I never paid for sex and I’m not sorry, says Berlusconi

Allegations: transexual TV presenter Manila Gorio is said to know the escorts

Silvio Berlusconi has broken his silence over claims that women escorts attended his parties and publicly denied that he has ever paid for sex.

Speaking in an interview with the Italian gossip magazine Chi, which he owns, the Italian prime minister also said he had "nothing to apologise for" as he made his first public comments on the growing sex scandal that has dogged him for weeks.

Mr Berlusconi, 72, has been under intense pressure since allegations at the weekend that high class escort girls had been regular guests at parties held in his villas.

Model Barbara Montereale, 23, claimed that she had been told by one escort, Patrizia D'Addario, 42, that she had been paid ¤1,000 to have sex with the prime minister.

In the Chi interview, which is published today, Mr Berlusconi implied that he had been the victim of a set-up. He said: "Behind Patrizia D'Addario is someone who is out to get me and she (Patrizia) has been paid well — they have a precise mandate against me.

He added: "I have never paid for a woman — I have never understood what satisfaction one gets from that if there is no pleasure of conquest."

Asked by Chi editor Alfonso Signorini if he suspected that the escorts had been used as a honey trap, Mr Berlusconi said: "If I had any idea I would have stayed well away from such a person.

"I have nothing to be sorry about, I don't have to apologise to anyone, there is nothing in my private life for which I have to apologise.

"Instead there are several national newspaper editors in Italy who should apologise to me and who should be ashamed of themselves but they never will and they will lose credibility."

Scandal has embroiled the prime minister since late April when he announced he was putting up models and TV starlets as Euro MPs.

Details of the escort women emerged last week during a corruption investigation in Bari of businessman Giampaolo Tarantini over a series of tapped telephone calls. In them Mr Tarantini, a close friend of Mr Berlusconi, is heard discussing payment for the girls to attend parties at Palazzo Grazioli, the prime minister's official residence in Rome, and Villa Certosa in Sardinia.

Mr Tarantini, 34, owner of a hospital supplies firm, has denied that Mr Berlusconi knew the girls were being paid to attend the parties and has apologised to him for any embarrassment.

Mr Berlusconi also spoke of his divorce from his wife Veronica Lario, 52, who has accused him publicly of "consorting with minors". Mr Berlusconi said their estrangement was a "deep wound" but they had a "fantastic love story".